“Maybe if we had some kind of weapon, we could grab the big man and threaten to kill him if the other one didn’t drop his gun. Of course the little man might not even like the big man. Hell, he might just shoot him and us,” I said, smiling a little and trying to lighten the mood.
“What kind of weapon have we got anyway, unless we could get our hands on a knife or something when they feed us again,” Glenn looked at me as if I had already figured something out and was about to tell him.
“I don’t know yet,” I said. “Just stay on your toes and keep your……..”
I stopped when I heard the sound of the lock on the door. Had they heard us talking? My stomach started churning again. This might be it. Who knew what these sick bastards would do next.
The two men came in carrying hoods like the ones they made us wear the night before. Once again, the little one held the gun and stayed a safe distance away, just like Glenn had said. The other man told us to put the hoods on and once again cuffed our hands behind our backs. That’s it. Execution time, I was thinking. I was wondering if we would be given a blindfold and a cigarette. For some inexplicable reason, perhaps as a defense mechanism, I was maintaining my sense of humor through my inner monologue.
“What about our friend? What’s gonna happen to him?” I asked.
“We’ll just let him sleep,” the big man said. “We shouldn’t be gone more than an hour or so. It will be lunch time by then and we’ll wake him up to eat.”
“All of us are gonna eat, right?” I asked.
“Why, sure. Unless you’re not hungry.”
That made me feel a little better, provided he was telling the truth. I started to ask where they were taking us, but decided against it. You don’t have to dread as much what you don’t know about, and I wasn’t really stupid enough to believe they were going to ruin the surprise.
We walked through a series of doors and short corridors until we reached what I assumed to be our destination. The hoods were removed from our heads and the cuffs taken off.
“Now, gentlemen. If you’d be kind enough to undress, there is a shower right around the corner there,” he said, nodding the direction. “I know you haven’t had a chance to bathe since your stay here, even though there is a shower in your room. Things have been hectic, and I apologize. The shower is large and has enough room for the both of you and you will each have a separate bar of soap.” I was listening closely as the man was giving our instructions on hygiene. I was still trying to place his voice. I felt like reaching out and snatching off his mask, but I hadn’t gotten that foolish yet. His voice sounded as though it were strained. As if he were trying to disguise it. Then the thought crossed my mind that this might be a good thing. Maybe at some point they were going to let us go and didn’t want us to ever know what they looked and sounded like. Maybe that was the reason the little man never spoke. It was something positive to hang on to, anyway.
After we had showered, we stepped out and dried off and I reached for my underwear. They weren’t on the vanity where I’d left them. Nor were the rest of my clothes, or Glenn’s either. We looked at each other with incredulity.
“Maybe they’re gonna give us some more clothes and wash those,” Glenn said, covering up his privates like the poor man we’d just seen eaten up by dogs had done.
“Maybe,… I mean,… I guess that makes sense,” I said.
Then the door opened and the man handed us each a thin robe that looked like the ones patients in hospitals wear.
“Put these on gentlemen and follow me, after you’ve combed your hair and brushed your teeth. You’ll find new combs and tooth brushes in the top left hand drawer.”
I grabbed the robe and yanked it on quickly. Glenn did the same as we opened the drawer and found the combs, toothbrushes and toothpaste. The man watched us, his hand relaxed by his side, holding the gun. If only I were bigger and stronger, I thought. I might could get the jump on him. But even if I had been bigger and stronger I would have to be as quick as a cat as well. And I had no idea if the little man was standing behind him outside the door.
He led us into a room that had several small tables and pedestals with candles burning on top of them. I couldn’t even start to guess what we were about to witness now. Given the ambiance of this room, however, I didn’t foresee another bloody sight like the one we’d witnessed a little while ago. This room looked gentle and peaceful. I was thinking that a woman was involved or either these men had a great eye for décor. There were two half beds right beside each other in the far corner of the room from where we stood. Some type of shackles were attached to the foot of the beds. They looked like they were lined with velvet or some kind of velour.
“Gentlemen. If you would now kindly walk over to the beds we have prepared.”
I didn’t think things could get much worse, but the thoughts running through my mind of what may be going to happen to us made me want to bolt and run. I’d rather be shot in the back than have to experience what I was thinking. I looked at Glenn and could tell he was as scared as I was. Then the man nudged us with the barrel of his gun and laughed.
“Come along now, gentlemen. I assure you it’s not what you’re thinking,” he said, still chuckling.
We walked slowly over to the beds and each chose one and stood beside it.
“Now, please remove your robes and lie down on your backs.”
We did as we were instructed. The man then cuffed our hands to the headboard and the velvet restraints were secured around our ankles. The two men then left the room through a back door. I laid there staring up at the ceiling. The candlelight was casting weird shadows on the ceiling and walls.
“What are they gonna do?” Glenn asked in a monotone voice.
“Ain’t gotta clue,” I answered the same way.
The big man came back in the room with some kind of contraption that resembled a pipe. He took out a cigarette lighter and held it down near the bottom and lit whatever was packed in the little tube on the side. He put the top of the round tube over his mouth and inhaled deeply. The pipe made a gurgling sound like water going down a drain. Then he walked over to me and held the pipe to my mouth.
“Inhale deeply,” he said. “It will make you relax and feel great.”
I knew what pot was, though I’d never seen it, and certainly didn’t know you smoked it in something as elaborate as this thing. I knew there were a few boys in our high school that smoked pot but I was pretty sure they rolled it up in papers, like Snake rolled up his tobacco. Anyway, I was all for relaxing, so I did what he said. I knew whatever was in there wasn’t deadly because he’d just smoked it himself.
I inhaled deeply, like the man said, and it felt like my lungs would explode. I coughed until there were tears in my eyes. When I’d finally caught my breath, he held it up to my mouth again and I was dumb enough to repeat what I’d just done. It didn’t feel as harsh this time and I started to relax a little. Glenn was a little more hesitant than me, but he wasn’t about to be outdone. After we’d both had five or six big blasts of the pipe, I was really starting to relax and beginning to feel good. I hadn’t forgotten where I was and what was happening, I just didn’t seem to be nearly as worried about it.
The man walked back out of the room, laughing. I started staring at the shadows being cast by the candles again, this time trying to pick out different animals and other shapes. I even had Abraham Lincoln’s profile perfectly pegged when Glenn said, “What do you think is gonna happen now?”
“I don’t know. But I don’t think I give a shit,” I said, as I burst out laughing.
“I give a shit. B…but not much of one,” Glenn replied, giggling like a little kid.
We were still laughing when the door opened again. This time it wasn’t the big man or the little man who walked through it. It took a second for my vision to get focused in the dim candlelight. What I was looking at had to be a hallucination from the pot I’d just smoked. It couldn’t be real. I’d seen two women naked in my life
and one was my momma when I was a little kid. The other was Glenn’s sister, Prissy, who I saw by accident getting out of the shower. And yes, Prissy looked very good. Of course I’d seen numerous pictures in Playboy magazines, but I’d never seen anything like this. If their was ever a perfect body, this had to be it. She was doing a little dance as she moved closer to our beds.
I hadn’t seen her face yet. Faces I’d seen plenty of. Naked women’s bodies I hadn’t. But I couldn’t imagine one ever topping what I was looking at now. As she finally got close enough for me to see her face, I really did think I was hallucinating. Glenn had apparently seen her face too, because I heard him let out a small gasp.
“What are you doin’ here?” I asked.
“Looks like I’m about to get a twofer,” she said in a seductive voice.
It looked like Glenn was about to get what he’d started after when we got kidnapped.
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
George Patrick, Sr. was about to the point where he was ready to grab hold of Freddy Bullard’s long hair and drag him around the room by it. He and Bruce both had a smug, condescending look on their face as the sheriff was questioning them, and George had about had enough.
“What in the hell have you done with my boy, you worthless son-of-a-bitch?” George had had all he could stand.
“I told you, Mr. Patrick, we ain’t seen him. How many times have we gotta say it.” Bruce yelled. George was thinking that if either of them finally broke, it would be Bruce. He was trying to maintain the confident, smart ass expression like his brother, but George could detect fear under the façade.
The Bullard brothers had told George and the sheriff that they had been at one of the new clubs down in Gadsden called the Odyssey the night before and they had plenty of people that could back up their story. Gadsden was the closest town that had any night spots where you could drink and dance. Putnam County was as dry as a powder makers ass and that’s the way all the bootleggers and moonshine runners wanted it to stay.
The sheriff looked at the boys and then at George. He motioned with his head for George to follow him out of the room. When they had closed the door he lit a cigarette and offered George one.
“Look, George. All we have to do is check their alibi. They said they were there ‘til after midnight and if they really were, they couldn’t have got back to your farm ‘til nearly one-o’clock. Them boys wouldn’t have stayed there that late, would they?”
George took a drag of his cigarette and inhaled deeply. “No, not unless there was some reason they couldn’t leave, like Glenn’s old truck bein’ broke down or something. Junior knows his momma worries when he don’t get home by midnight, and he usually gets in trouble with her. He always tries to keep his momma on his good side.”
“Well, let’s just check out them boys stories then? If there’s people who says they were there ‘til midnight, it prob’ly couldn’t have been them. Whatever happened prob’ly happened before midnight.”
“How do we know we can believe what a bunch of their friends say about them bein’ there?,” George asked. “You know they’d lie and try to cover for ‘em.”
“Hell, I’ll load ‘em up in my car and take ‘em down there if I have to. I’ll ask some of the people that work there if they saw ‘em and if they stayed as late as they say they did. I just don’t know what else to do. I’ve got deputies out lookin’ and doin’ all they can. I called the state boys about gittin’ a helicopter and they said they could have one here by three-o’clock.”
George put his hand on the sheriff’s shoulder. “I know you’re doin’ everything you can, Andrew, and I appreciate it. Maybe those boys in there didn’t have anything to do with it. But I’ll bet you anything it’s got something to do with Jake Bullard. Hell, he might have hired somebody.”
*****
Madge started with me, which I knew pissed Glenn off to no end. There wasn’t any small talk or preparation of any kind. There didn’t need to be because she knew exactly what to do and she did it well. Not that I had any prior experience to compare it to. But every story I’d heard from those who had experienced it, had way undersold it. By a thousand percent. Hell, maybe two-thousand. I had stopped wondering about why Madge was there and mixed up in this mess. Maybe she had been kidnapped too, for all I knew. At the moment I couldn’t have cared less. I wouldn’t have believed it possible to experience so much pleasure while at the same time not knowing if I was going to be alive at the end of the day.
Madge leaned down and started nibbling on my ear again. Her hot breath on my neck and in my ear was too much, with what was also going on below my beltline. I let out a little grunt that was kind of embarrassing, but she didn’t seem to notice. Then I said in a small voice, “I love you Madge.” She had a smile on her lips and a look in her eyes that I couldn’t discern. Was it pleasure or pity? Or both? Then she leaned her head closer and mouthed silently, “I love you, too.”
She put her head back down and her lips close to my ear and whispered quietly, “Just act like you know what you’re doing and listen to me.”
“O…okay” I whispered back.
“Listen closely to me, and don’t interrupt.” She raised back up as the big man walked a little closer to get a better angle with his camera. She had her hands on my chest and was moving around as though she was having the experience of a lifetime. I didn’t have to pretend, I was having the experience of my lifetime. When the man had moved further back, she leaned down and started kissing my neck again.
“Be ready when we come into your room to bring your supper tonight,” she whispered. “I know you have a gun hidden somewhere in the room. When I hit Carl in the head, grab the gun and follow me and don’t say a word.”
I couldn’t believe what I’d just heard. The big man was Carl? Her husband, Carl?
She raised back up and started putting on a show. The camera clicked rapidly three or four times. Then she was back to my neck again, kissing it violently, making everything look real.
“There are three more men in the building. I’m going to try to get you up the stairs and into the van before they notice.”
Madge started acting as if she were really getting into it now. She could have won an Oscar for her performance. The camera continued clicking with the flashbulbs lighting up the room. Besides the pictures, I was pretty sure we were being filmed too. I was now, among other things, a porn star. Who would have ever guessed it.
When Madge put her head back down again, I whispered, “What about the little man that’s always with Carl?”
“I am the little man.”
With that she slumped down on the bed beside me, breathing heavily as if she’d just had the greatest moment of passion and pleasure in her life. Carl seemed pleased and kept the camera clicking. She laid there for a moment, then got up and walked over to the bed where Glenn was laying. I’d never seen a more surprised look on his face. When she sat down on his bed and ran her fingers through his hair, his mouth was agape like a kid who’d just seen Santa Claus.
“Soooo, you sexy cowboy, is this gonna be your first time in the saddle too?”
Glenn hesitated for a second, then answered, “Well, let’s just say I’ve been around the block a couple of times.” I wanted desperately to yell out, “Lying asshole!”, but I managed to hold my tongue.
*****
Snake had finally come around and was eating the lunch they’d brought us as if we were on a picnic and nothing had happened. Maybe whatever they had given him had erased the memory of the gruesome scene we’d witnessed earlier. If it had, I wished they could give me a shot of it. Me and Glenn hadn’t forgotten what we’d seen, but were able to block it from our minds for a few minutes, anyway. I believed the magic Madge could work would make any man get his mind off anything for awhile.
I wondered if I should tell Glenn what Madge had told me. For all I knew she had told him too, but I doubted it. For some inexplicable reason, there seemed to be some sort of connection between Madge an
d me. I had felt it the day we went to work in her yard and me and her spent so much time talking. I felt the same thing again when we went to her that night for advice on what to do about finding Gloria Reeve’s body and the Bullard’s involvement.
Did Glenn need to know so he’d be ready to move when the time came? Madge hadn’t told me not to tell him. Maybe she thought I was smart enough to figure it out on my own. I was smart enough to know not to tell Snake. I was afraid he’d give it away as soon as they walked in the room. Despite the progress Momma and Daddy had made with him, in many ways he still thought like a child. I supposed he probably always would.
Glenn could tell I was in deep thought and he couldn’t stand it any longer.
“What have you got on your mind? I mean, besides old Madge?” he asked smiling.
“Just wondering how we can get out of here,” I whispered. I still wasn’t sure whether or not the room was bugged and they could hear what we were saying. It seems that if Madge were really on the level, she would have told me if the room was bugged. Of course it could have been that she didn’t know it either. I had a hell of a lot of questions to ask her when and if she got us out of this mess. But what if she didn’t come with us? What would happen to her? I had to stop worrying about all and just be ready when the time came. Getting out of this horror show was the top priority right now. If that didn’t work, none of the rest would matter anyway.
“Got any plans yet?” Glenn was whispering loudly and looking irritated. He’d apparently been talking to me and I was so deep in thought I hadn’t noticed. “Are you goin’ deaf?”
“No, I…I was just thinking. Just be ready at all times. Make sure we don’t leave Snake behind, but don’t say anything to him. He may do something crazy if you do.”
I looked down at the stack of books that were laying at the end of my bed. I reached down and started going through them and was surprised at what I saw. Apparently, they were expecting some intellectual and erudite guests. There were volumes on Pluto, Aristotle, Socrates, Cicero just to name a few. There was also a copy of The Decline and Fall of The Roman Empire, by Edward Gibbons and several books on philosophy and a few on physics. There were magazines, too. But they weren’t Playboy or Life or Good Housekeeping. They were mostly trade magazines on subjects like science and mechanics and aeronautics. Who the hell were these people? One thing was for sure. They weren’t a bunch of hayseed hicks from the hills of Putnam County, Alabama. But I didn’t really need the books to tell me that. This elaborate, underground labyrinth with all it’s automation and little chambers of horror gave away the fact that we were dealing with intelligent people that apparently had an infinite amount of finances.
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